Animation is a beautiful resource for filmmakers. In fact, it’s so complex that often animated films have hundreds more people working on it and the budgets can be several times larger. To give you an idea, How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) had a budget of $145,000,000. Birdman (2014), this year’s Oscar winner had a budget of only $18,000,000. That’s only about 12% of the former’s budget.
But why exactly does animation even exist? Or at least in this day and age of heightened CGI effects, is animation losing its luster?
Dreamworks and Disney (Pixar and mainstream) would beg to differ. Every year since 2001, these two giants along with a few relatively unknown studios fight their own battle amongst themselves for the coveted Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film.
One of the greatest weapons of animated films is the character that everyone loves. Usually an animal or alien, these characters literally sell the film providing both an adorable companion and a comic relief in times of extreme stress.
What I wanted to look at was why these characters are so well received by audiences. In essence, what makes these so cute. In order to do so, I wanted to analyze the arguably cutest characters from both Disney and Dreamworks: Stitch and Toothless.
Now what these two adorable animations have in common is that they are both animals of a kind while also featuring human characteristics; Stitch plays the Ukulele, Toothless draws…etc. A lot of people that I talk to say that it is these human characteristics that they find so adorable, but I would argue that instead it is what makes them inherently animalistic that makes them appealing.
Let’s look at Stitch. While he is technically an “alien”, he is animalistically a dog. Lilo adopts him at a dog shelter and without the extra arms and antennae, he looks a fair amount like a dog fallen in blue food coloring.
But when Stitch is doing all of his human things (playing the Ukulele, smashing book cities, reading…etc) he becomes less of an adorable animal character and more of a human character we, as the audience identifiy with. His struggles are human in nature so we do not always respond with an urge to think him adorable or cute.
This becomes a lot more apparent in our resident Dreamworks animal, Toothless. Toothless is by nature more animalistic than Stitch. Initially, Toothless was modeled after a cat in his physical appearance, however his movements and mannerisms are far more reminiscent of a dog than a cat. In addition, unlike Stitch, Hiccup can ride Toothless, lending him a few characteristics of a horse, namely stubbornness and intelligence.
What these two have in common, though, and what I argue makes them so likeable is one defining feature: loyalty. Both Stitch and Toothless are extremely loyal to their best friend/owner. This is what audiences find so adorable. When Stitch is desperately trying to save Lilo, this is the moment audiences truly fall in love with Stitch. Likewise, when Toothless flies into the arena to protect Hiccup, audiences fully redeem his earlier coldness and fall in love with him.
Loyalty is both a human and animal instinct. However in this context, the loyalty of these two characters isn’t just about friendship but also about protection. This is why it is more animalistic in nature, it exhibits the master/pet kind of loyalty as opposed to the friend/friend type.
This isn’t to say that the human characteristics of these characters aren’t appealing or adorable. I just seek to argue that if they were human, they would not be nearly as adorable.
Suggestions This Week: Animated Films with Adorable Animals
Lilo and Stitch (2002)
How to Train Your Dragon 1 & 2 (2010 & 2014)
Mulan (1992)
Ratatouille (2007)
Up (2009)